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Page 5 February 14, 1989 The fourth issue is the impact on area land use patterns. It is likely that a facility such as proposed would act as a catalyst for additional development in the vicinity. With the county's nodal approach, however, future commercial development would have to occur only in established nodes. Conclusion It has been demonstrated that regional malls are special land uses which have minimum size needs. Because of the lack of undeveloped commercially designated land sufficient in size to accommodate a regional mall, the staff acknowledges the need to redesignate land in the county so that a mall can be accommodated. The subject site meets the criteria for designation of a mall site. It is within an urban service area, has access to major roadways, is centrally located, and is not within an environmentally sensitive area. While staff feels that the subject property is appropriate for a mall, the staff feels that the site should not be used for general commercial development which does not have the size requirements of a mall. Because this request is part of a DRI, the county has certain control which is not available in a normal rezoning or plan amendment. That control involves conditioning the DRI development order. In this case since the county does not want the subject property available for general commercial use (for which there is sufficient land currently available) if a mall is not constructed, the staff feels that the development order should provide sufficient time for the county to redesignate and rezone the property if a mall is not constructed. With that condition, the request is acceptable. RECOMMENDATION Based on the above analysis, including the Planning and Zoning Commission's recommendation, staff recommends that the Board of County Commissioners authorize staff to transmit to the state the request to amend the Comprehensive Plan to include the subject property in the commercial node and rezone to CG, General Commercial, and announce their intention to hold a second public hearing concerning this matter. Robert Keating, Director of Planning & Development, explained that, in reviewing this request for a land use amendment, staff looked at a regional mall request as a unique entity since a regional mall needs a minimum amount of acreage in contiguous parcels or contiguous area in order to be accommodated. In looking at the minimum sizes, staff also reviewed the amount of commercial land available in the existing nodes in the county. Although there is a substantial amount of vacant, commercially zoned and designated lands in the commercial 13 FEB 2 81989 BOOK .76 FAr3.E 233